A Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology is also referred to as multiple-antenna transmission. In this technology, system reliability may be improved through space diversity, a system capacity may be improved through spatial multiplexing, and cell coverage may be improved through beamforming. Therefore, the technology is considered as one of key technologies capable of implementing data transmission with a high rate and high quality in future mobile communication, and has wide application prospect in a fourth generation (4G) mobile communications system or even in a fifth generation (5G) mobile communications system. Specifically, in the Long Term Evolution (LTE) Release 10, a new transmission mode (transmission mode 9) is introduced, so as to support demodulation reference signals (DMRS) of eight ports and support MIMO transmission. Specifically, to support 8-antenna transmission, a base station needs to indicate, in control information carried by a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH), an antenna port number corresponding to the DMRS and a quantity of transport layers corresponding to a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) of a terminal. Specifically, the base station can perform indication in downlink control information in a downlink control information (DCI) format 2C/2D. As one of key technologies for MIMO, a precoding technology is applied to a transmit end, so as to minimize a correlation between signals on different transmit antennas when the signals reach a user, minimize interference between the signals on the different transmit antennas when the signals reach a receive antenna, and maximize an array gain between a plurality of antennas.
In a current system, to resolve a problem of interference between cells and improve an edge user throughput, a coordinated multipoint transmission/reception (CoMP) technology is proposed. In addition, to support the CoMP technology, antenna port quasi co-location (QCL) is introduced, and signals sent from QCL antenna ports experience same large-scale fading. Further, a physical downlink shared channel resource element mapping and quasi-co-location indicator (PDSCH RE Mapping and Quasi-Co-Location Indicator, PQI) is introduced, so as to indicate, to the terminal, a base station that sends PDSCH information and a group of antenna ports that are consistent with a corresponding channel large-scale fading feature, and the terminal can learn of, by using the PQI in combination with a PDSCH mapping information element configured based on radio resource control (RRC), a radio channel parameter corresponding to a group of DMRSs required to demodulate the PDSCH.
However, based on conventional centralized MIMO, in the current system, only one group of QCL parameters are configured in downlink control information in the DCI format 2D. To be specific, the terminal can receive the PDSCH information from only one base station. After distributed MIMO is introduced, in other words, a plurality of transmit antennas are distributed in different geographical locations, the terminal may simultaneously receive a plurality of pieces of PDSCH information from a plurality of non-QCL base stations. If the current system is still used, the PDSCH information sent by the non-QCL base stations cannot be separately indicated, and consequently, the terminal cannot learn of a non-QCL base station that transmits data.